Monday, March 24, 2014

The Yellow Pack

Don't know why I remembered this today.
It was 1983.
Digboi, Assam.

My mother came back from school ( she was a teacher in Carmel School) with something wrapped in a brown paper packet.
As my sister and I changed out of our summer blue and white uniform, I remember my mother change faster than usual and then calling us into the kitchen.

On the kitchen table next to the gas burner was a yellow packet we had never seen before.
It was a Maggi Noodles.
Mother read the instructions carefully.
She said another teacher and her friend had brought this for us from Delhi.

She said we need a saucepan, I reached out for one drying out by the sink.
She then started reading the instructions aloud as she measured out the water in a cup.
My sister and I listened carefully.
Obviously mother wanted to get this right and we had to help her just in case she missed something.

They were ridiculously simple.
Just water, break the cake into four ( or was it two), snip open the masala satchet ( it was chicken).
But to us that day, it seemed like quite a task.

Then to our surprise, mother put the table clock which was usually at her bedside, next to the burner.
That was the day 2 minutes happened in our lives.

The second hand marches its way to 120 seconds. The minute hand glides over 2 small markings.
Gas turned off.
Two bowls out.
Mother ladling out.
We tasting.
Me asking mother to have some as well.
She spooning out whatever is left, onto a small saucer.
We tasting again.
We liking the taste.
Very much.
Wish we had more.

We walked back to the kitchen to put the bowls in the sink.
Mother did not throw the packet away.
In those days, if you cherished something you saved it.

The empty yellow packet stayed with us for many years.
Reminding us of how food ties us together.
With memories that always spring alive whenever we see it again.